Do political determinants affect revenue collection? Evidence from the Indian states

In a recent study, Dash and Raja (2013) have shown that the size and composition of public expenditure of Indian states are systematically linked with political determinants such as the extent of government fragmentation, strength of opposition, electoral years, and ideology. This study extends the questions to whether there are similar links to revenue collections by the governments that rule the different states in India. Using the same time period of the previous study, four revenue measures related to tax collection and internal debt are considered and four different sets of hypotheses are developed by linking the political determinants with each of the revenue measures. The overall findings of the study suggest that the government-specific political determinants are significant and robust determinants of revenue collections of the Indian states.     

Exchange traded funds: leverage and liquidity

This paper examines the differences between leveraged and unleveraged Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), particularly for liquidity and volatility characteristics. The impact of leverage on intraday liquidity (spread and depth) is analysed in two periods – one of normal volatility and the other of abnormal/high volatility. There is a significant difference in spread and depth of leveraged and unleveraged ETFs in periods of both normal volatility and high volatility; however, this difference is more pronounced in higher volatility periods. In high volatility periods, liquidity typically diminishes in all ETFs, and this is even more so for the leveraged ETFs. When leveraged ETFs are segregated into multiples based on their power to replicate the underlying benchmark (i.e. multiples of ?3, ?2, ?1, 2, 3), the difference in spreads between normal and high volatility periods is typically larger. The double-leveraged ETF has the most significant difference between the positive and negative counter parts. However, the relationship in the progression of the multiples does not change linearly to correspond with the level of volatility. This may be due to the nonlinear relation between volume and volatility. We shed light on the magnification effect of financial leverage on microstructure of the ETFs.     

State wage-payment laws, the Pension Protection Act of 2006, and 401(k) saving behavior

I show empirically that state wage-payment laws, which forbid deductions from wages and salaries without the written permission of the employee, constituted a binding constraint on firms’ choices to adopt automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans prior to 2006.     

Impact of the economic downturn on nursing schools

The challenges posed by the economic downturn on baccalaureate nursing schools in the southeast as it relates to their perceptions of changes in the number of applicants, acceptance rates, employer recruitment efforts, and student clinical and job placement were explored. Responses from deans and program directors indicated nursing schools are experiencing negative effects of the economic downturn in the form of graduates having difficulty finding employment, decreased recruitment efforts from prospective employers, difficulty locating clinical placements for students, and no change in faculty applicants despite an increase in undergraduate student applicants as well as graduate student applicants. These multiple factors combined could signal the death knell for programs that are ill-prepared to deal with such a crisis. Programs need to be aggressive in their efforts to draw health care recruiters as well as qualified faculty applicants to their campuses. Nursing schools must be able to clearly show why their graduates are superior to other programs' graduates when competing for both highly qualified faculty applicants and prospective student employers.